


Fight or flight

by Kalendeer



Series: Full brothers in blood Verse [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Prehistoric Elves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8394565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalendeer/pseuds/Kalendeer
Summary: In the first days of Thingol’s kingdom, Eöl meets his greatest temptation.





	

Those were days of stones and bones; a time when the elves knew little of the shining veins of earth; a time when it took little to fill their eyes with wonder.

Those were the days of Eöl’s youth. Half-grown, he was sullen but quick of mind, and one of the first to dig the copper out of the earth. He would dig for nuggets of iron and gold until they filled his hut like so many stars. He would try to break, burn and melt them; but always did their true nature evade even his sharp glances.

With no one to teach him, he was fumbling in the dark.

Until, one day, he found the knife.

The knife was the most precious object Eöl beheld. It was sharper than even the black stones, solid and dangerous. It was made of metal, but through no way the Sinda had heard of. He turned the knife in his fingers again and again and again; he tested the blade until his finger bled.

He could not make sense of it.

The knife had showed up one morning, laying like an offering in front of the small oven Eöl had built to try to melt copper. The hilt was carved bones, hand-made; someone had deposited the knife here, for his sake, and the elf could not fathom why. He considered getting rid of the treasure. What if it was a trap? He had heard much about those during the March, and more still from the old days of Kuivienen.

He could not.

And he had to know how to make another one.

For seven days he obsessed over the finely crafted blade. For seven days he tried to make his fire hotter, to break the nuggets to smaller part; yet every day he failed. The secret evaded him. The knowledge that it was _possible_ but unreachable was like an open wound at the back of his mind, until the frustration shot out of his mouth like a feral scream.

“I can show you how it’s done,” came a voice, slow and deep and deliberate; it came from the deeper shadows under the trees, from an elf-shaped creature that moved with the softness of a wolf. The warm light of Eöl’s fire shone only on the bone-whiteness of a mask carved in ivory, crowned with snowy hair like Thingol’s. “Think about my offer. I will be back.”

And quick as that he disappeared.

The apparition haunted the young craftsman. There was, to the figure clad in clothes dyed colors too dark to be possible, an eeriness that struck Eöl as god-work, too alike to the aura that surrounded Thingol ever since he met his queen. The apparition was dangerous. It’s face hid behind a mask that could conceal monsters; still, he did not go back to the great woods, to seek the help of the King and his sorceress.

He looked at the knife and couldn’t move.

What if it was true? What if he could, indeed, discover how it was done?

“I can teach you how to do it,” said the voice the next time he came, and found Eöl still unmoving, torn between fear and envy. His heart screamed “run! Fly, you fool!”, but his mind was clicking. “Think about my offer. I am waiting.”

He thought about how the creature disappeared, about the weight of his voice. He pondered the luck, or ill luck that had brought it here, to deliver a gift to the one who would desire it the most.

It was a trap. It must be.

Eöl wondered if this was a trap he could escape.

He was smart, tall and strong for his age. He could follow the creature, perhaps wrench the secrets away, outsmart it and run. He could learn how to work the metal.

“I can teach you far more,” offered the creature. “I can teach you how to create a web of songs that will protect your home. I can teach you how to make wood and stone remember words. I can teach you how to melt the blood of earth and shape it to your will.”

Every night the creature came back. At each new lightning of the dimmest stars he would come and offer new wonders, new knowledge, and magic known only of Melian.

Every night, the urge for flight diminished.

“I can make you great. I can offer you ovens that burn hot. I can offer tools that can bend metal. I can show you the blood of the stars and teach you how to shape it to your will.”

And Eöl would glance up, to the thousands of thousands of fires up there, and wonder what marvels he could do with such material; he dreamt of metal so fine it could cut iron itself; he dreamt of black, smooth stones that did not cut, but allowed his eyes to dive into the great songs of the world and see; he dreamt of gems crafted with the tears of stars.

“For what price?” he wondered, and heard too late the words coming out of his mouth.

“You allegiance to my throne,” the masked figure asked. “I would bring you back to my kingdom, and see you become great at my court.”

“I am sworn to my kinsman Thingol already,” Eöl answered. _Fly, you fool_ , his heart screamed; but another part of him whispered that whatever Melian had to teach, she kept to herself and her husband.

“Think about my offer,” the shadow repeated. “I will wait for you.”

He came black at the next dimming, and the next one, silent and still, until he repeated his words and disappeared again. Each time it took more and more will for Eöl to refuse; he was even past the point of considering running back to the others.

They would take the knife. They would wonder why the creature came to him in the first place, and why Eöl hadn’t run sooner.

“I will come,” he tried, once, talking to the emptiness between the trees.

“I hear you,” the voice answered, and there it was, the creature, as if it had never left. “Kneel, and I will show you.”

 _Fly, you fool_ , he thought – and he squashed that thought, and his fingers curled around the knife.

He knelt and he took the gloved hand of the creature. The mask slipped, and under the white ivory was the face of an elf, skin pale as a Tatya’s, a face that would have born a striking resemblance to Finwë’s of the Tatyar, had the hair not been as white as Thingol’s.

“Welcome, then, _Simug_ Eöl,” the elf said, "to the host of the Great Smith.”


End file.
